Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

The Power of Propaganda

When I was at Tuskegee, an organization to which I belonged required potential members to go through an "orientation" session. One of the purposes of this session was to make sure that all the members had the same baseline knowledge of the subject matter we dealt with and to wean out those who weren't really in agreement with our principals. One of the things we dealt with was the use of propaganda. One thing we stressed was that regeardless to who in the organization was spoken to, any person inquiring about the organization or it's stand on a particular subject would get the same answer. No permutations were allowed, no "personally.." just the standard line. Some people could not understand why we did this or why we were so peculiar about how we presented ourselves to the public. But we knew that a consistent and persistent image and message was essential to further our agenda.

Today I ran across an article at Alternet entitled: How the Democrats were Betamaxed It is an excellent essay on the power of propaganda. I don't particularly care for Democrats, but I believe that for any reader that is serious about ending Global White Supremacy, this is an important read. This piece also adds evidence to the correctness of Dr. Welsing's definition of "racism" as we covered at the beginning of this blog as well as the issues of apparently unrelated phenomenon actually being related.

quote:

Republicans also understand the value of strategic communications and the importance of "naming and framing" legislation and policies. Naming and framing can turn the "estate tax" ("estate" sounds like it only applies to rich folks) into a "death tax" – we all die and it just doesn't seem right taxing the dead. When the GOP renamed the estate tax the death tax, they were able to frame it as a mainstream concern with 75% of Americans supporting its repeal, even though the estate tax does only apply to the rich, and it's paid by less than 2% of Americans.



They name legislation "No Child Left Behind," "Healthy Forests," "Clear Skies" and "Patriot Act," essentially forcing legislators to support their bills, lest they be accused of leaving children behind, favoring polluted forests and skies, or being branded as unpatriotic. It's sheer genius. It makes Microsoft's tactics for marketplace dominance look like child's play.



Another vital aspect of marketing is placement, or controlling the distribution channels. Republicans took this a step further by largely replicating Ted Turner's strategy of vertical integration of content and distribution. Cable maverick Turner recognized that he could become a formidable media force by owing both the channels of distribution – his TBS cable network – and content. So, he bought sports teams, acquired the MGM classic movie library and invented the 24-hour news network CNN to fill his cable channels.



Using this same vertical integration model, conservative think tanks and foundations, like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, have been laboring intensively on the research and development of conservative policies, as well as their packaging in media-friendly ways. These policies provide the "content" to feed to three primary distribution channels: legislative distribution channels including elected officials, candidates, senior staff, and political appointees; judicial distribution channels; and various mainstream and dedicated media distribution channels, such as Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Washington Times, et al.

Links:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18395